Month: November 2008

Happy day-after Thanksgiving!! Appropriately, most of my links this week are for Christmas stuff.

First off, even though I’m not buying anything today, I have a list of eco-friendly craft supplies, courtesy of Crafting a Green World. I’m kind of drooling over the bead collection. And wondering how my crochet friends would feel about yarn hand-spun from the seller’s wedding dress…

Ok, so this one’s not exactly Christmas-y. But I loved these “fairy lights” made from Christmas lights and recycled egg cartons at Whip Up. I’ll have to find an excuse to make those sometime…a party, perhaps? I also had to take note of their list of tutorials for baby crafts–I think I have a couple of years until the next wave of babies, since it seemed like half of the women I know and their sister had a baby this past year, but I’m always scrounging for ideas (and ways to avoid the headache that is Babies R’ Us!) so this should help.

Moving away from the holiday stuff– I really liked this Dresden petal handbag tutorial at Quality Time. Not only cute, but a great way to use up those pesky scraps. And, well, this one really isn’t crafty at all. But I also had to bookmark this list of music of interest at Angry Chicken. Because music feeds creativity, and I’m always looking for ideas of bands to hunt down at eMusic. Mmmmm, indie bands.

And with that, I am off for a night of movies and craftiness of the Christmas ornament variety with some of my friends. Ciao!

Since I’m not the one rushing around to cook dinner (my family always goes to my dad’s parents’ on Thanksgiving, and my grandfather insists on making all the food, other than the bread, which my mom makes), figured it would be fitting for this blog to think a little on this subject.

So here’s why I’m thankful that I’m crafty….

Because it’s fun!

Because it allows me to express myself in a unique, creative way. Particularly since I’m primarily a clothes sewer. Plus I rarely have to bother with the concern that someone else will show up in the same outfit as me.

Because, even though it takes some effort sometimes, I can have clothes that truly fit.

Because it allows me to make gifts for my friends and family that are truly personal. For instance, what are the odds that I would have been able to find a rabbit apron for my rabbit-owning-and-loving friend for her wedding? (Plus it was functional!)

Because it’s something I can use to help people. Something I’ve just started having opportunities to do this year, pretty much, and mainly through my Bible study–like I was able to help make pillows for kids at battered women’s shelters, and it looks like we’re going to be doing something with Project Linus soon.

Because it’s therapeutic. Crafting is great stress relief for me– though I’m not one for long-term repetitive crafts (the reason I was never really able to get into cross-stitching or knitting or crocheting), something small like stringing a necklace together can be really soothing. Or the accomplished feeling of running a few seams together and having it look like a skirt or shirt can be a real pick-me-up. Or, sometimes I have to break stuff before I can make stuff, and that’s just fun. 😉 Or, on a slightly more personal note, the times when I get really down about the single life, it helps to work on my scrapbook some and remember all the fun times I have with my friends and such.

Speaking of scrapbooking, it means I get a more creative way to look back on those memories than just shoving them in an album. More time-consuming, yes, but the kid in me loves the collage aspect!

Because it allows me to connect with people. Though not all of my friends, I’m fortunate to have some friends here who also craft, and getting together with them and making stuff (even though it’s often not the same type of stuff, as 2 out of 3 of them are primarily crocheters!) is always a fun time. And, I’ve also enjoyed getting to know crafters from all over the place through this blog!

Ten seems like a good number to stop at. Especially since I want to get some sewing in before we head over to my grandparents’ for the turkey. So, I hope you all have a wonderful day with lots to be thankful for, no matter where you are!

It took me all day yesterday, and they’re not completely done yet– I still have to sew on some hooks and eyes, and I’m letting them hang up for now just in case they stretch out a bit on the legs before I hem them, and I have to clean up all the stray threads from the waistband and the markings. But I have pants that fit.

Admittedly, they’re a little more snug than I would have wished. They still fit, but if I ever gain weight, they won’t. The problem is, the interfacing eliminated every bit of give that the fabric had for the yoke. I couldn’t get the yoke onto the pants without a lot of puckering, even though I clipped the seams a lot to try and get it to stretch more. (Thus the stray threads at the waistband.) So I ended up having to take the seams in a bit near the top of the pants, to try and work out some of that excess cloth. Thankfully, I can still get them on (though I have to do the hip shimmy thing to make it work!)

Had a little bit of trouble with the fly front, namely because I ended up sewing it shut when doing the external stitching. I wish I could say it was an accident, but I think it was just a case of not knowing how to construct it. Once I went to put the yoke on, I realized my mistake and (with the help of a pair of RTW pants so I could see what it was supposed to look like) fixed it. But it’s not bad for my first fly front since I was a teenager! (Probably better than that one was, actually.) So that gets me one step closer to what is currently my sewing Holy Grail (since I’m in no position to get to make myself a wedding dress) –jeans that fit!

I’m really glad I have a serger now. I know I’ve had it since February, but since it was a combined birthday/Christmas gift for this year, I’ll say it again. Having that was the best thing that could have happened to these pants, because the fabric got so easily frayed and without it, I probably would have had to double-stitch a bunch of seams to try and keep the fabric from pulling apart within a couple wearings. Or French-seam all the straight ones. And then it would have taken twice as long. The pattern instructions actually did call for French-seaming the outer curved edge of the pockets, but I just regular stitched it and then serged the edges instead. Probably not quite the couture thing that the Vogue pattern was going for, but I’m glad I did it, because I’m certain that the pocket seam would have showed through the front of the legs with that excess bulk. It’s just that kind of fabric. I’m also thinking that it’s a good thing I decided to skip the back welt pockets, because I probably would have rectangles showing through on my backside–not a good thing, when I’m going to be wearing this to conduct a band at their Christmas program and that’s what all their parents are going to be seeing!)

No pictures yet, because I don’t want to take them before I sew on the hooks and eyes. And, well, I would like to get the hemming done first so they’re actually done. Maybe I’ll get that done later today. We’ll see, because Joy and I are going to be spending the afternoon blueifying Susannah’s wedding dress again. And dyeing her shoes. I’ve never dyed shoes before, so this should be an interesting experience!!

Edit, 11:24 AM: Trying out a new color scheme, because I’m feeling festive. I really wish I was better at this HTML editing… I can’t figure out how to change the tag boxes at the bottom of the posts from that clashy blue-grey! And I can’t pick a new template, because I can’t remember how I got my scrolling sidebars on here. Meh.

First order of business: Christine at and sew it begins… graciously bestowed a Bookworm Award on me.

The rules of this award are:-pass this on to 5 friends

-Open the closest book to you, not your favorite or most intellectual book, but the book closest to you at the moment, to page 56.Write out the 5th sentence, as well as two to five sentences following that…

Closest book to me is Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice (started it just before Halloween, figured it was appropriate for the season, but this is proving to be a shockingly slow read for me!! Normally I’d have been done a book of this size by now! Anyway…

” ‘For what!’ Lestat grimaced, so that his face looked like a skull. ‘Taking me out of school!’ He threw up his hands and let out a terrible roar of desperation. ‘Damn him! Kill him!’ he said.”

Ok. After digging through the pattern stash, I came up with this. So here’s my game plan of how I will (hopefully) get started on sewing this thing by this weekend, since I have a very limited amount of time in which to finish it! (Especially since I have a Christmas present that needs sewing in the meantime so I can mail it out!! And a growing craving to get some recons done…)

Tonight: Cut out muslin #2.Tomorrow: Baste together said muslin, and work on fitting errors.Friday: Cut out the pants/jacket/lining/interfacing in its entirety.Saturday: Start sewing like crazy!!

Well, it’s official– both of my HotPatterns are a flop. At least for the purpose I had in mind.

I took a break from the pants fitting, and spent a good chunk of today cutting out and basting together the muslin– didn’t even bother putting in the second sleeve, because it was quickly apparent that there’s some major problems with this.

Problem #1: It needs to be taken in. A LOT. And it’s not so much a pattern sizing issue this time (I triple-checked my measurements against the chart, and since it had everything from size 6 to 26 on the same pattern, it’s not like I could have bought the wrong size!) No, this is my usual fitting-at-the-waist issues. But highly accentuated by the gathering. But yeah, several inches have to go.

Problem #2 (the more difficult one): The armhole is ginormous. To the point where this is where it stops–almost level with the empire waist. Since I’m planning on wearing this to conduct a band concert, arm movement is kind of a priority. And with both sleeves and buttoned up, don’t think that’s going to be happening– at least not without some major tugging across the back at this point!

Another view– hard to see since the picture’s kind of dark (and I haven’t gotten Photoshop back on my computer yet to play with it), but the hugeness of the armhole shows up better against my darker shirt.

Problem #3: I should have seen this one coming. But the sleeves are too short. It’s practically a 3/4 sleeve on me, and I think they were supposed to be long. At least, that’s how it looked on the envelope sketch. Curse my monkey arms!

So it looks like I’m going to be hitting the stash for the jacket pattern, too. I have a Simplicity one that might work out nicely. I’m just so annoyed–for one thing, I’ve been wanting to try a HotPatterns outfit for years, and it really doesn’t make me feel any better that the patterns are way pricier than my usual strategy of stocking up on the $0.99 pattern sales at Joanns’ or getting stuff free off of BurdaStyle!!

I’m not saying I’m never going to come back to these two patterns– if only for the reason of trying to get my money’s worth, I kind of feel like I have to at least try to tweak them into something wearable. But with only a month to get this pantsuit done, I just don’t have the time to try and fix such major issues right now.

On a brighter note, I did get C’s Christmas present mostly done today as well, and I’m very happy with how that is turning out. Though I’m not posting any hints or pictures yet, since I know she occasionally lurks on here!

A visual aid to the last pants post–the trimmed-down pieces overlaid with the original pattern.

Had to trim down the outer side seams…

…change the angle and depth of the back crotch…

…and the most dramatic one– look how much I have to take out of the yoke!!

I also got the pattern pieces cut out for my jacket. I’m glad I cut them out first, because I was going cross-eyed with some of the smaller pieces, the lines were so close together! I can’t imagine trying to trim them at the same time that I was cutting the fabric!!

In other news, I’ve joined the Sew Craft Blog— Sharon told us about it, and the concept is pretty neat. It groups 15 crafters together to form a mini-blog community of sorts. I’ve been placed in the still-forming group #3. Adding the links to the list of blogs I’m following as I get them, and will post on the sidebar once the group is fully made. I’m excited to see how this turns out!

Or, several notes to myself in tweaking the pants pattern. This post is pretty much just for myself so I can find it quickly. If I write it down on paper, I’ll be sure to lose it in my messy living space.

Pants side seams: 1″

Yoke side seams: widening from 3/4″ where it joins the pants, to 1 1/4″ at top.

Yoke back seam: widening from 5/8″ where it joins the pants, to 1 3/8″ at top.

Crotch seam: tapering from 1 3/4″ in back to 5/8″– end of tapering approx. 1 1/4″ from center, in front.

Pants side and yoke side front notch: 7/8″ apart. (Same for back double notches, actually.)

Next trick: How to actually transfer all of this to the pattern, so I’ll be ready to cut out the black version.

Next next trick: Jacket muslin. Finishing the striped pants will have to wait, seeing as how I have only 32 days to actually get the pantsuit ready to wear! More like 20, if you count all the days (i.e. Mondays and Tuesdays) where I get done work/dinner/all that too late to have presence of mind to sew/the days I’m working on S’s wedding dress!

Ok, so the last bit isn’t entirely accurate, but I wanted the alliteration.

As you can see, I’m now photo-capable again! My computer is mostly functional again– still have to reload a couple things like Photoshop, and do some major work on fixing my iTunes library. There’s a bunch of random albums where all the tracks got loaded twice (some of them only partially loaded twice), and I’m going to have to reconstruct all of my playlists, so I’m in the process of writing down the track listings from my iPod. Can’t sync that till it’s done. But anyway, back to the craftiness!

This is the fabric/pattern I’m making my test pants from, which has been sitting in my stash for about two years now.I also found all of this yumminess in the same bin, which I honestly had forgotten I had, and am itching to make some stuff from it!! Especially that embroidered black.

So these are the pants, which I cut out and basted together last Thursday.

As you can see, I still need to tweak the fit some. (And it doesn’t help that this mirror angle makes me look really short and fat!) I’m going to have to take off the yoke and tweak the side seams a bit, I think, but hopefully once I get all those changes made, it’ll sew back together really easily! So I’m hoping to have all those changes made and the pattern altered accordingly by the weekend, so I can sew them together as my test run for the pantsuit.

No sewing this past weekend– was in Baltimore to hang out with friends and watch The Decemberists! I did take my road trip scrapbook down, though, and made a rather major dent on it. I have one tiny bit of stamping left to do, and then it’s just print out a couple of things (easier to do now that I have my computer back) and machine stitching, which I can get done in an afternoon. But I have to do the pantsuit first. Still, I should be able to get this done by the end of the year, which is my goal!!

As for the last part…I’ve come to a decision. Money’s going to be really tight for me over the next several months, and so I’m going to see if I can refrain from buying new craft supplies until May (which is when my car should be paid off, and then I can rebuild whatever chunk of my bank account the next couple of months is going to kill.) I will make a few exceptions:

Small notions like zippers and thread, if I don’t have anything on hand that will work.

Scrapbook adhesive. Can’t finish those pages if I run out of sticky stuff! Also, maybe photos, if I run out of printed out stuff to work on (hahahaha!)

If I need to buy things to make gifts. Such as that fabric I already promised B for her birthday presents. And if I need to make any wedding gifts for S.

But other than that, I’m going to try my darndest to not buy any more fabric. Or paper. Or clothes from the thrift store to refashion. We’ll see if I can stick to it.